Hogwarts Is Where I Belong
by inasentimentalmood
Summary: AU Crossover-What would happen if the Greendale Seven attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Will they "play nice" with Harry, Ron and Hermione? Who will be sorted into which house? Mostly short vignettes; no long suspenseful story arcs. Inspired by a manip by defiantbritta on tumblr. Open for chapter requests (review or PM with desired characters and plot idea).
1. Chapter 1: Missive and a Mission

_**A/N:**__ Hello and welcome to an alternate universe where all of the Community characters are reduced to their eleven-year old selves and all just happen to be students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, too. This story is a birthday gift for my beautiful bestest friend, fatty_fat. I hope you enjoy the crossover goodness. I've tried my best to stay true to the canon of both _Community_ and _Harry Potter_ but inconsistencies may/will occur. Enjoy, and please review if you have the time. _

_Warning: There will be no shipping of any kind in this story. Sorry. But actually I'm not. _

* * *

**Chapter 1: Missive and a Mission**

It was just a normal Saturday at the Nadir household. Mr. Nadir was working weekends and Mrs. Nadir had gone to brunch with her friends. Their only child, eleven year-old Abed, was sitting on the living room couch according to ritual, still in his pajamas with his duvet cover wrapped around his shoulders. Enraptured by the latest dubbed episode of _Pokémon: Gotta Catch 'em All_, he scooped a spoonful of Lucky Charms into his mouth, chewing rhythmically and swallowing before reaching out for his mug of Special Drink. "Looks like Team Rocket's blasting of AGAAAAIN!" he mouthed in unison with the television audio. Grabbing his nearby notebook he jotted down:

Episode 402, "Pika Must Choose"

3/5 stars

Minimal character development, no one evolves

Favorite Quote: "Pikachu, that's _my_ hat!" –Ash

Preceding pages were filled with similarly detailed, methodically written notes of Abed's many favorite television shows. Pages in the back of the notebook were reserved for in-depth character analyses and weekly ratings data gleaned from his neighbor's recycled copies of _Entertainment Weekly_. This was his tenth notebook.

A light tapping sound broke Abed from his TV-viewing reverie. At the window to his left an owl hovered, clutching an envelope in its tiny beak. Abed cocked his head at the sight but immediately opened the sash to allow the bird passage. It promptly deposited the envelope into Abed's outstretched hands and perched on the television to await the recipient's reaction.

**Abed Nadir**

**443 Skis and Snow Lane**

**Denver, CO 80201**

the envelope read in calligraphy drawn by a slightly palsied hand. It had been sealed with a deep crimson wax monogrammed with the letter "H."

"Epic," Abed whispered to himself as he broke the envelope's seal.

* * *

**HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY  
**

**Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore**

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

**Vice Headmaster: Craig Dumbledean**

_(Leisel, The Sound of Music, Dumbledean Productions, Youtube Licensing Corp.)_

Dear Abed Nadir,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

* * *

Abed's eyes darted back and forth, the contents of the letter by no means shocking him. He quickly flipped to the supply list.

"Robes, pointed hat, gloves, telescope, Waffling's Magical Theory…I already have half this list!" he exclaimed. Tearing a sheet from his TV-watching notebook, he scribbled "Yes" before hastily folding the note and nestling it gently in the owl's talons.

He offered the owl some of his Special Drink but the owl snobbishly recoiled, twisting its arrogant head and spreading its wings to fly. With a hoot it bounded out the way it had entered, soon lost in the nimbus cloud-filled sky.

Abed stood at the window, pensive, knowing that it would take a lot of planning and a lot of luck to get to Hogwarts sans parent-detection.

He'd get to it right away.

Right after Digimon: Digital Monsters, that is.

* * *

_**A/N:**__ Thanks to the Harry Potter Wiki.  
_


	2. Chapter 2: Nice to Meet Choo

**Chapter 2: Nice to Meet Choo**

The Hogwarts Express whistled obnoxiously, steam pouring out its stovepipe into the grey and dreary morning. Abed rushed to get onboard, clutching the strap of his messenger bag satchel with one hand while wheeling his luggage with the other.

Fellow Hogwarts students crowded the platform, saying their last tearful goodbyes to family and friends, and Abed impatiently carved a trail through them. He wanted a window seat, but facing the opposite direction of the train's movement and preferably in one of the first few carriages because ones near the caboose tended to jostle and bump.

Once on board he decisively entered the first cabin to his right, placed his luggage in the overhead compartment and only then turned to see that it was already occupied.

A young black boy sat opposite him in jeans and sneakers, his ankles crossed and shoulders hunched forward, completely engrossed in his blue Gameboy Color.

Taking a seat in the plushy, velvet-upholstered bench, Abed ventured to ask, "Pokémon Yellow?"

"Huh?" the boy looked up, deftly pausing the game while looking up to make eye contact with his new travel companion. "Yah… I already beat it, but now I'm going back through all of the regions to buy up the entire game's inventory of potions. After that I'll probably get all the fishing poles. It's not great, but it's all I have 'til Gold comes out."

"What I like to do is go back and collect _digletts_. Hundreds of them. I love _digletts_," Abed offered, already picturing their tiny, rounded little brown heads bouncing and bobbing in Dark Cave.

"I guess?" the boy responded tentatively, surprised to be having such a candid conversation with a person he'd only just met. "What's your name again?"

"Abed. Abed Nadir," he explained, pulling out his recently purchased wand and beginning to fiddle with it.

"I'm Troy. Troy Barnes," Troy replied, shutting down his Gameboy and stowing it in his backpack for later.

The train wailed again—last boarding call. The aisle way soon flooded with latecomers.

The head and upper body of a young, sooty-faced ginger boy appeared in the cabin doorway; his face was painfully apologetic.

"Excuse me, do you mind? Everywhere else is full."

"Sure," Troy responded, moving his backpack next to him to make room for him. Behind the redhead trailed a diminutive brunette boy with wire-rimmed spectacles.

"I'm Ron by the way. Ron Weasley," the ginger-haired boy explained, smirking sanguinely and making himself comfortable next to Troy.

"Harry. Harry Potter," the brunette boy followed suit, introducing himself while plopping down next to Abed.

"Anything off the trolley, dears?" the perm-haired, vest and skirt wearing older woman with the refreshment cart inquired. Shelve upon shelve of metallic-wrapped, sugar-rich goodies twinkled in the eyes of the four boys, who admired the bounty with watering mouths, contemplating a purchase. Harry had just begun to rifle in his pants' pocket for some change when Abed, pensive, suddenly blurted,

"You look like Mrs. Doubtfire."

* * *

**A/N:** Heavy borrowing from the _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone _movie, both the scene and some dialogue. Sorry.. The Hogwarts Express is just such a great place for a meet-cute.


	3. Chapter 3: Welcome to Gryffindor House!

**Chapter 3: Welcome to Gryffindor House!**

_**A/N:**__ I specifically chose not to write a chapter about the Sorting Ceremony and welcome feast in the Great Hall because I honestly could not think of an interesting way to write it. I also didn't want to include the troll incident because it focuses on Harry, Ron and Hermione. THIS alternate universe is troll-free. _

_Also, I wanted to create more suspense regarding which characters get sorted into which houses! The following are vignettes of the first evening in each of the four. Don't hate if you disagree with the sorting; you can always write fanfiction of your own according to your personal preferences. Thanks for reading!_

* * *

The excitement of the first night at Hogwarts was wearing off and Troy rubbed his eyes with fatigue before unpacking his maroon sweaters and jeans into the dormitory drawers. The school uniforms were boring to him, not to mention uncomfortable. He hung up his slacks, diagonally-striped ties and white dress-shirts grudgingly. Lastly, he pulled out a brand-new leather football from his knapsack, a parting gift from his father. He briefly wondered what his family was doing that very moment, but quickly stopped himself before he got too sad. With both hands he lovingly placed the football atop the ornate wooden dresser.

It was quickly snatched away by a pair of small, pale hands. "Hey!" Troy squeaked in protest.

"WHOA," the oblivious Ron Weasley chuffed admiringly, shaking the football as if it were a wrapped Christmas present, "A real, proper American football!" He stroked the textured surface, then palmed it and maneuvered it like a toy spaceship up and around his head.

Troy was too generous to be annoyed with his overenthusiastic ginger friend who seemed to be far too easily impressed by all things _muggle_.

"Here," Troy offered, gently prying the ball from Ron's hands while crossing to the far side of the room. "See if you can catch it."

"Wicked!" Ron exclaimed, scooting himself opposite Troy, the moonlight highlighting his strikingly pale skin. He wiggled his fingers in anticipation, stance much like a goalie during a high-stakes shootout.

Troy tossed the ball in a perfect spiral, snapping his wrist in the follow-through as his dad had taught him. The ball arced through the air right toward Ron. He simply had to hug it to himself.

As if in slow-motion, Ron's pudgy fingers gripped onto the ball, faltering, fumbling and ultimately deflecting it right out the window. A loud crash preceded a dramatic rain of jagged glass shards from the nearby ten-foot tall gothic frame.

"Shite," Ron murmured, shamefaced and covering his head reflexively. "Sorry, mate."

Troy sighed. "We'd better get Britta."

"My Angela Davis book is a real page-turner, so this'd better be good," Britta said as she stomped up the stairs into the boy's dormitory, her chunky black-rimmed glasses and lisp-inducing mouth retainers indicating that she had been preparing for slumber.

"Yeah, Britta, I know how much you love Murder on the Orient Express," Troy replied smugly, happy with himself for sounding so intelligent and well-read. Britta just looked confused.

She entered the room to assess the damage but was greeted by a shrill "EEEP!" as a naked Harry Potter scrambled to cover his body with a nearby bed sheet, a towel-turban adorning his head. She rolled her eyes and ignored him as he sheepishly scuttled into the hallway, wrapped in a burgundy and gold duvet cover.

Ron was crouched near the window picking up the largest pieces of glass and trying to fit them back together like a puzzle. He was failing miserably. He threw a penitential glance at Troy and nodded to acknowledge Britta.

"Broken glass and lost football," Troy explained tersely as Ron abandoned his futile jigsaw endeavor to make way for Britta's magic.

"Oh, is that all? _Accio football_," she stated nonchalantly as Troy's football came sailing back through the window to land in her palm. She drew her wand from her hair, which had been pinning it into a bun. "_Fenstra reparo_" she carefully enunciated with a wave, causing the glass shards to levitate momentarily before fusing back together. "Here Troy," she said, handing the ball back to him and heading towards the door.

"That was _bloody brilliant_!" observed Ron, almost moved to clap for the talented witch, he was so impressed. Britta just shrugged.

"Thanks, Britta," Troy said appreciatively, placing the football back on top of the dresser.

"Forget about it," Britta replied dismissively with a wave of her hand, smiling nonetheless as she tucked some of her blond hair behind her ear and headed back to her room.

The next morning found a groggy and disoriented Harry Potter, scratching his head and starkers in the boy's tub.

* * *

_**A/N:** For the diehard Potter fans, I am aware that the accio summoning charms aren't learned 'til later later years but let's just say that Britta's precocious and leave it at that._

_Also, if you really love Harry Potter and are upset that I've made him into kind of an idiot, I need to warn you that he will continue to be the butt of many jokes. It's just too easy; how could I not?_

_Oh and sorry if the Troy confusing Agatha Christie with Angela Davis isn't funny to you. Too obscure & random? Oops._


	4. Chapter 4: Welcome to Ravenclaw House!

**Chapter 4: Welcome to Ravenclaw House!**

Most of the Ravenclaw students had retreated to the dormitories to settle in and flop exhausted onto their beds. Hermione Granger, however, was headed down to the Ravenclaw common room for some last-minute studying of potions and charms. Although she'd already read both of the introductory textbooks twice, she'd reasoned that a brief skim-through refresher couldn't hurt. She was hoping that the common room would be deserted by now so that she could focus completely on the task at hand.

Instead, she was greeted by a rather gratuitous view of a male behind. Clothed, naturally, but jarring nonetheless. The skinny, jean-clad owner of said behind was bent over at the waist, fiddling with what looked like a small television set and makeshift antennae. His deft fingers flitted from knob to knob, occasionally grabbing for a screwdriver and flashlight. The sound of static filled the room.

"Um, pardon me?" Hermione ventured, clearing her throat, "I don't mean to be rude, but are you _supposed_ to be doing that?" As a stickler for the rules, Hermione always did her best to avoid becoming an accessory to crime, large or small. Her moral inflexibility gave her a rather strong reputation as a tattletale back at her primary school back home. She clutched her massive leather-bound textbooks to her chest tightly, trying to sense whether the boy before her was a potential "bad influence," i.e. rule-breaker.

"Oh, hello," Abed turned around to address her, albeit distractedly. He had improvised a monocle by strapping a magnifying glass over his right eye with his belt, creating a somewhat ridiculous image when paired with his oversized light green flannel pajamas. He looked nervously at his watch. "Uh, can you wait a sec?" he asked but didn't stop for a response, resuming his work more feverishly than before. He carefully adjusted the antennae angles and waved his wand above the monitor, which was filled with hyperactive gray and white specks. The specks began to turn into waves, then bars, then static again. It spluttered, and then miraculously began to transmit a gauzy image of a nondescript coffee shop where a group of men and women were gathered, speaking rapidly and sipping at oversized ceramic mugs.

Abed immediately perked up at the sight, cast off his handmade headgear, grabbed a couch pillow, a blanket and his mug of Special Drink and laid stomach down, inches from the screen.

"Whew, just in time and not a moment too soon. This is the one where Phoebe loses her cat and Ross gets married," he explained to no one in particular, though maybe to Hermione—just a little bit. "You wanna watch?" he asked quickly, taking a sip of Special Drink but not taking his eyes of the screen. His white-stockinged feet kicked back and forth in excited anticipation for the opening credits.

"Um…" Hermione asserted warily, taken aback by Abed's un-self-consciousness and feeling ethically-bound to refrain from participating in a potentially illicit activity. Her initial plan, after all, was to study.

"Here," Abed offered, as the first commercial break began, rifling in his pajama pockets to produce a couple of food-filled plastic sandwich bags. I brought jelly beans and gummy worms. You want some Special Drink?" he asked but began conjuring one up before Hermione could even answer.

"Oh. Well…" Hermione began reservedly, conflicted in so many ways. "Oh, sod it all!" she thought, casting aside her books and hunkering down to enjoy some telly with a boy who just might be her first Hogwarts friend.


	5. Chapter 5: Welcome to Hufflepuff House!

**Chapter 5: Welcome to Hufflepuff House!**

Annie Edison sat at the desk of her dorm room, carefully using a razor blade to trim the edges of her new quills just-so. After each quill was properly tended to, she dipped it into her inkpot to do a few test strokes along a bit of spare parchment before meticulously wiping it clean with a damp cloth and storing it for future use. She then unpacked her _Lisa Frank_ penguin-shaped alarm clock and placed it on her bed stand, blowing a kiss to the pink, purple and blue-tinged bird of an inexistent psychedelic Arctic. She then began to lay her clothes out for the following morning, checking for wrinkles that may have occurred in transit. Everything about tomorrow needed to be just—perfect.

She was in the middle of her 100-stroke nightly hairbrushing regimen when another female first-year entered the room, carrying a silver platter.

"I'll talk to you later, Susan," the girl said over her shoulder, laughing at a shared joke that Annie had missed out on. Other girls passed by in the hall murmuring, "Hey Shirley," on their way to their rooms, and Shirley smiled and nodded in response.

"Hi," Shirley said to Annie, walking forward and proffering her a full plate of baked goods, "I'm Shirley. Want a brownie? I made 'em today with my mom, you know, good way of meeting all the new neighbors," she said while surveying the room.

"Gee…thanks..." Annie began, touched by the gesture but conspicuously choosing not to take a brownie and moving away from the platter at the same time. "I… Um… Sorry…" She shook her head _no_. "I'm trying to cut back. The caffeine in the chocolate. Makes me a bit, you know, crazy!" she gestured broadly.

"My mom, she's a big stickler. No caffeine after 2PM." She shook her head again resolutely.

"'A_** lady **_doesn't need drugs.' That's what she always said."

"But one time," Annie whispered, "I had an M&M before bed and I stayed up ALL NIGHT playing SPIDER SOLITAIRE," she divulged conspiratorially. "She never found out." Annie ended this with a small "hmph!" of self-delight.

"That's nice?" was all that Shirley could say in response, still holding the platter of brownies.

"I was an only child you know," Annie continued, on a roll. "That's me! Only-Child-Annie!"

"I used to call myself that when I'd play alone with stuffed animals growing up," she stated proudly.

"But nope, neeever lonely. Not this girl right here. You know what? I_** journaled**_. I tapped into that INNER dialogue. You know? That point when you REALLY, I mean, REALLY know yourself. It's just like, _HELLO! Who needs anyone when I've got __me__, right_? Right?!" Annie finished, her manic ramblings complete for the time-being, only just then realizing that at some point during her long self-disclosure she'd stood up and begun to pace.

Shirley was still awkwardly standing there with her brownies and unsure of what to do. She resolved to do the right, Christian thing.

"You know what, sugar, let me go get my things and we can continue this conversation as _roommates_, huh?" She smiled at a stunned Annie who was normally used to her peers being repelled by her neuroticism. Shirley placed the brownies down on a nearby desk and walked down the hall to the room she had initially indeed on sharing with Susan Bones—until the good Lord had led her otherwise.

Shirley was gone just long enough for Annie to quickly tiptoe over and furtively pinch a few ample crumbs from the brownie tray and jam them in her mouth. Insomnia be damned; sometimes you just had to live a little.


	6. Chapter 6: Welcome to Slytherin House!

**Chapter 6: Welcome to Slytherin House!**

"Look at me now, Dad!" a young bespectacled brunette boy cried, alone in his dormitory room, waving his wand wildly, the ample black sleeves of his robes aflutter. His father, Cornelius Hawthorne, had firmly decried his son's letter of acceptance to Hogwarts, denouncing the school at as "illegitimate pagan sorcery" school for "deranged Welsh hooligans." He quickly forbid Pierce from attending and threatened to cut him off entirely if he were to disobey. Now in his own room, freshly sorted into Slytherin House, Pierce couldn't help but revel in his successful rebellion. He smiled to himself imagining his father coughing up his 100 year-old brandy when he'd realized his son had flown the moist-towelette coop. Losing his inheritance was small pittance in exchange for the wealth he hoped to soon amass.

"Pierce Hawthorne," he mused to himself, "most powerful wizard in the world. Grower of money trees. INCAPABLE OF BEING KILLED." He wailed, not fully grasping the limitations and rules of magic, lost in his own misguided delusions.

He ran out of the room, eager to slide down the well-oiled mahogany banister that was screaming his name as he'd ascended earlier, bags in tow. In his heedless rush out the door he collided head-first with a sullen-looking blond boy with a ski-slope nose and an almost-mullet. They both stumbled backwards from the impact, rubbing their foreheads and wincing in pain.

"Dude, what the heck, man?" the mullet-sporting boy complained, hoping the injury wouldn't result in a bruise. He wasn't living at home anymore, which meant that early-morning raids of his mother's liquid concealer were no longer an option for covering blemishes and occasional discoloration.

"Oh, sorry, Jeff," Pierce stammered, awkwardly patting his fellow American on the shoulder.

"Hey!" he said brightly, eying Jeff's duffel bag, "You looking for a place to bunk?"

"Uh…" Jeff mumbled noncommittally.

"Well, whatever," Pierce improvised, not wanting to look needy or stupid, and straddled the top of the banister, poising himself for descent. "I've got stuff to do anyway. _SAYONARA_, SUCKER!"

Jeff looked apathetically on.

"WhoooOOA!" Pierce hooted, careening and picking up speed as he passed by his Slytherin housemates who were, to him, a peripheral blur. "Steve McQueen, EAT MY DUST!" He raised his hands as if on a roller coaster. The banister rail ended all too soon, sending Pierce flying into the air, arms and legs flailing in giddy, foolish delight.

"Draco!" an oafish boy yelled out in warning, but not in time for Draco to evade the human projectile sailing his way. Pierce fell into Draco's arms, knocking them both down like bowling pins. Draco found himself flat on his back, looking up at a dorky and slightly chubby Pierce, who was grinning idiotically.

"Yee-haw!" he yelled, bounding up the stairs for a repeat.

Draco picked himself up and brushed himself off, sneering.

"_Bloody Yanks_."


	7. Chapter 7: Meat the Dean(eldore)

**Chapter 7: Meet the Dean(eldore)**

"Abed," Troy called out on his way to the Great Hall for breakfast, running to catch up. "I was reading _Nintendo Power_ this morning and Pokémon Yellow has, like, 36 hidden Easter eggs. Wanna find them after class today?"

"Yah, this place is driving me nuts. People here don't use electronics and they never talk about movies or TV. It's weird. Did we travel back in time?"

Troy gasped softly. "What?"

"It's plausible. Have you noticed that the lamps are powered by gas and cars are inexistent? We're in the middle of nowhere with no contact with the outside world."

"_It makes so much sense_," Troy said, eyes open wide in wonder.

"But what would Hogwarts have to gain in transporting children into the past? Or, if we are still in fact in the present, why would the magical world be void of technology? Are whimsy and innovation that mutually exclusive? There are way too many plot holes here."

Troy just shrugged as he sat down next to Abed at the Ravenclaw table to continue their conversation.

The table was laden with scones, crumpets, muffins and toast; scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage in tiered towers and large pewter platters. Fruit was somewhat of an afterthought: only six strawberries and one cubed cantaloupe were all that were offered to each house. Without the nagging and threats of guardians, students put far too much sugar in their tea, ate more than their fair share of bacon and, of course, skipped the fruits and vegetables altogether. Most of the students did, that is.

Troy put a crumpet on his plate, and then grabbed a strawberry, slicing it lengthwise into two triangles. These he placed near the top along the circumference of his crumpet, one on each side. To finish off his creation, he poured maple syrup eyes, a delicate nose, a mouth and whiskers. He quickly set to eating it.

"I was hoping for Lucky Charms," remarked Abed, disappointed. He nibbled on a tiny scone filled with jam and clotted cream.

He observed a housemate enjoying beans on toast.

"I need to watch more British TV; this culture is lost on me."

"I dunno, this pancake is pretty good," Troy offered thoughtfully, although it _was_ a lot harder to chew than his mom's buttermilk short stack.

A Ravenclaw prefect sitting next to Troy did a double-take when he spied Troy'd burgundy and gold tie. He hurriedly chewed and swallowed his mouthful of scrambled eggs before objecting. "Oi! This is a Ravenclaw table; you can't be here!"

Troy looked up and down the length of the table. A good three-fourths of the students were reading books while eating rather than engaging in conversation. The other fourth were silent as well, simultaneously dumbstruck and exhausted by such a large public setting. So maybe Troy didn't particularly belong with these brilliant, brainy, bookish people. Whatever. All of this house-sorting business seemed like nonsense to him anyway. He began to formulate a response.

"Uh, first of all, that's _racist_."

* * *

Chimes sounded at the head of the Great Hall, the arpeggio resounding until a hush fell upon the adolescent diners. A bald man in a short-sleeved dress shirt and brown slacks slinked up to the front of the room and surveyed the array of groggy, listless faces before him.

"Good mornDEAN, students," he began nasally, his hand on his hip. "Welcome to the first day of the school year! As you well know, I'm Craig Deaneldore, Vice Headmaster."

"I am sorry to say that your headmaster Albus Dumbledore has been called away on urgent business, leaving me to serve as interim headmaster for the time-being. Eeeyow! Can I get a _wutwut_?"

Blank stares.

"Anyhoo," Deaneldore continued, "just wanted to make the announcement that the Forbidden Forest is STRICTLY OFF LIMITS to ALL STUDENTS; so don't go in there, okay?" he said, pushing his black-rimmed glasses up his nose and nodding his head in assent.

"Good…"

"Now let's get out there and LEARN!" he wailed enthusiastically while pumping his fist in encouragement.

Back at the faculty head table Professor Snape rolled his eyes and wondered to himself how in God's name such a man came to be the administrator of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

He then resumed glaring conspicuously at Harry Potter, as he was wont to do.

* * *

"Check out the Forbidden Forest tonight?"

"Yah," Troy replied without hesitation.


	8. Chapter 8: Forest Foray

"_Lumos_," Abed and Troy said in unison as they began trudging through the Forbidden Forest, wands raised. It was well past midnight.

The two boys stepped over moss-covered logs and protruding roots, squinting and unsure as to where they were headed. It was windy, so Troy raised the hood of his jacket to avoid the chill.

"This beats potions class, that's for sure," Abed commented. "The professor's humorless wry demeanor in combination with the fact that the classroom's a dungeon is almost too cliché to handle."

Troy chuckled. "Snape," he muttered. He began to dance around goofily. "Oooh, look at me! I'm Professor Snape! Mmmm, potions! Formality! England!" He stirred an imaginary cauldron and turned up his imaginary collar.

"You're killing me," Abed said, not laughing but one hundred percent sincere.

They continued walking.

"What did you think about charms?"

"Now that was cool. _Wingardium leviosa_," he said to the nearest pebble with a swish and flick of his hybrid birch-carbon polymer wand. The rock wobbled back and forth as if readying for take-off, but never left the forest floor.

Troy threw him a sympathetic look. It was his turn now. _Wingardium leviosa_. A fallen fir branch slowly levitated to their eye level, synchronized with Troy's wand movement. Abed raised his eyebrows, clearly impressed.

"Watch this. _Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee r! Whooooosh. Guhguhguhguhguh._" Troy maneuvered the branch through the air like an airplane, completing barrel rolls and loop-de-loops. Abed watched in fascination.

"Anyway," Troy deflected, crashing his branch into a tree trunk because he didn't want to seem like a showoff. "Why's this place off limits?" he gestured to the forest which now surrounded them. They had ventured so deep into the woods that the school was indiscernible when they looked back. "There's nothing here."

"Ten minutes have elapsed with nary a nocturnal beast-sighting," Abed commented. "I would have thought that by now we'd be running for our lives or kidnapped or caught by Deaneldore. This is disappointingly un-cinematic."

They continued onward, eyes on the lookout for anything strange. Abed stifled a yawn as he nimbly skirted a bog of some sort, leaning on a trunk for balance. The bark beneath his fingers, the soil beneath his feet—everything was so _ordinary_. There was nothing magical at all about this Forbidden Forest. Nevertheless he put one foot in front of the other, lost in thought.

"Ouch!" Troy blurted abruptly as he stubbed his toe on a particularly gnarly root. He kicked it with his other foot in frustration. It was _really_ hard to see by wand light alone. He stooped down to tie his left shoe, muttering to himself at how uneventful this night had turned out to be. No confrontation with a giant or a werewolf, no discovery of hidden treasure, no _actual_ flying squirrels. Ugh. _Make one bunny ear, then the other. Tie into knot. Double-knot for good measure. _

When he looked up, Abed was gone and the forest was pitch black save for his own illumined wand.

"Crap."

Troy immediately panicked. "Abed?" he whispered intensely. "Abed!" He was running now, looking in every direction.

"Abed! I'm serious! This better not be a dumb trick!"

An owl swooped down and nearly sideswiped him.

"God! Move, you stupid owl! My friend's in danger!" He swatted crazily. And then he saw it: the faint glow of a wand in the distance. It wasn't moving.

"_Nox_," he muttered, not wanting to give his position away as he moved toward the light as quickly and noiselessly as possible.

He got closer and closer, tiptoeing until he was only 30 feet away. The light was still as stationary as ever. Something was definitely up.

Troy crouched down and waddled forward, careful to avoid stepping on dry fallen branches. He squinted. The man holding the lit wand was none other than Professor Snape.

"What…the hell?" Troy remarked inwardly.

Snape was talking animatedly (for him, at least,) with someone—_something—_ Troy had never ever seen before in his life.

_Centaurs. Now that's more like it._

This centaur, however, wasn't at all how he'd imagined. He wasn't regal in the slightest, his flanks and upper body were quite flabby and he was, well, Asian. What was he doing talking to Snape?

_This is the weirdest night._

Snape at this point had begun to storm off toward the school, but the male centaur followed him, his cloven hooves clopping on the forest floor. He was imploring Snape about something, but Troy was too far away to distinguish the particulars of their conversation. He was just as confused as ever—and still hadn't the foggiest idea where his friend was. He waited in his crouched position, just in case Snape and the mystery centaur dude returned.

"Psssst! Troy!" a voice whispered intently. Troy looked about himself wildly.

"No, Troy. Up here!" the voice whispered again.

From the branches above him, Troy spied the silhouette of Abed's skinny legs dangling lazily in the limited moonlight.

"_Jeez_," Troy sputtered in relief, already beginning to ascend the nearest tree to join his friend. "I thought you were dead. Let's invest in walkie-talkies."

"—or their magical counterpart."

"Whatever… Just—don't do that again!"

"Snape showed up and I had to hide. But this gave me a great idea."

"What?"

"Treehouse."


End file.
